Understanding
by KayFay
Summary: Ten short drabbles in the mind of Tabris and Zevran as she falls to love for the assasin.


**So, I decided to try my hand at the whole songfic meme thing. Da rulz: 1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like. 2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle. 3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards! 4. Do ten of these, then post them.I chose Tabris and Zevran. Because the Antivan is made of lady-killer win. I don't know how well it worked out (most of my music isn't varied because my hard drive had a seizure and decided that music was a luxury I could do without) but viola! Here it is, enjoy! Feedback is always appreciated.**

**Rated M for mentioned prostitution and rape.**

**Lithium by Nirvana**

The tavern reeks of ale and the stale stench of oppressive loneliness, but Tabris could care less about the stench assaulting her nose. She slams her hands down upon the scratched and abused wooden bar and orders three tankards. She does not intend to share.

Two hours and many interesting self-involved conversations later, she is reasonable calm. She allows the memories to wash over her: noble men with vile intentions, the pain of starvation worrying at her stomach, and the agony of knowing her father could not save her from it. She could choose death of the body from starvation or death of the soul from lying on her back for coins and the occasional scrap of human kindness.

Unexpectedly, warmth rises up her spine. She remembers a spring day, the mud sucking at her boots, and a suspicious woman running towards where her "friends" need help. Tabris knows it's a trap, but she follows just the same. Golden eyes meet hers, and a razor-sharp smile carves across a tanned face. The elf intends to kill her. At least he's honest about it.

**Stricken by Disturbed**

Hands chapped and calloused in all the wrong places from a life of dishonest work drift across her bare arm, uninvited and wholly unpredicted.

Goose flesh follows the fingertips progress across her skin, eyes tracking the movement with horrified paralysis.

"I did not think you would be this accommodating, mi amore," velvet whispers, warm breath of a predator tickling her earlobe, sending her courage into convulsions. The hand drifts higher, then drift west and south. The exposed skin of her collarbones are kissed by calloused fingertips, and the nimble fingers threaten to dip lower, the other hand already worrying at the buckles upon her side.

Tabris jumps up and away, normally graceful feet scrambling in the dirt. The rogue follows with his constant predatory grace, golden hunger watching her fumbling movement. But he doesn't follow when the bushes claim her fearful form.

**Stay Away by Nirvana**

He doesn't smell like them, brine, death root, and unidentifiable tanning agents opposed to silks and "masculine" flowers. His skin is rough, where theirs' were like milk, smooth and far too white for anyone worthy of wearing it.

He may not smell like them, but he certainly moves like them, confident sway, fearless gaze and the absolute certain that he can conquer anything she throws at him.

Never mind how her heart pulls her to comfort expressive gold eyes and the gentlest of tugs that pulls the corner of lips down when he is certain no one is looking. She will not forfeit her freedom ever again.

The next time he touches her skin with his thin fingers and her mind with velvet compliments, she pulls out a poisonous blade and poisonous words.

**Andro by Eluveitie**

The day started off well enough: Morrigan had cooked, so the food was not crusted to the bottom of the pot. Ogrhen had gotten just enough ale to put himself into a pleasant stupor, but not enough that Zevran had to wake up to the sounds of the dwarf getting sick on the side of his tent. And the slobbering beast hadn't managed to get a hold of anything. The Mabari had behaved itself just as well as Alistair.

But now here they were, fighting a horde of darkspawn that just never seemed to END. Hurlocks, genlocks, even an emissary assault them, claiming drops of their blood in the fresh air.

They eventually agree to a retreat through silent consensus, but one of their number is missing. Zevran looks over his shoulder, and catches sight of nothing but a head covered with blood-stained braids, immobile upon the hulking mass that was once an ogre.

He freezes, ice threading through his veins, until she raises her head, eyes meeting his with a flash of heat, and a smile breaks upon her bloodied face in victory.

**Rhythm Of The Night by Valeria (don't judge, it was on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack…)**

"Dance." The soft voice threads through the market so perfectly, she can almost believe they are her own thoughts. But she doesn't think with an Antivan accent and a lecherous hand upon the small of her back that threatens to dip lower. "A good night of dancing is what you need to loosen up."

She resists the urge to flinch away and simply raises a brow. "And where, pray, where would we accomplish that?"

He hesitates a scant moment before baring teeth that gleam in the darkening alley. "The Pearl of course. And there are other forms of dancing to partake of if you are so inclined…"

The snort dies halfway up her throat as a shadow lunges forward, the glint of cheap steel aimed at Zevran's throat. She bursts into motion, her own blade free of it's sheath and her feet moving with deadly speed.

Zevran spares a smile for his thoughts before he joins the fray.

She does not need fancy halls or minstrels, she dances to a music made of rasping leather and clanging iron that is fiercely her own.

**Otherside by Red Hot Chili Peppers**

Her eyes don't judge him. No, she's far too controlled for that. It's her shoulders that betray her.

A master of the Crows once told him that the shoulders are the most expressive part of the body. Watching the not-quite delicate elf before him, he can believe it. Her eyes may lie to him, but when he candidly mentions his laughter as Rinna's life bled out upon the floor, the shoulders tense, drop as she mentally prepares herself to put him down. Like a dog. No, she is a woman of Ferelden, she loves those slobbering beasts. Like a soulless Abomination. There, that is suitably dramatic.

But she doesn't draw her blade, nor does she unsheathe that scathing tongue of her. She keeps her condemnations behind her lips and clenched teeth, but her shoulders claim a certain loss of trust. Of understanding. Of what could be friendship. _Of what_, that traitorous hope whispers, _could have been more._

She leaves for her tent without another word.

**Nights of Love by Papa Roach**

She knows she is hurting herself, and somehow that makes the emotion tearing at her heartstrings all the sweeter. She will destroy herself, she knows it, hounded as she is by golden eyes made soft with joking advances and purring voice rich with the taste of a foreign air. It is a form of insanity, the way his distinctive musk envelopes every one of her thoughts until everything pales in comparison to the sight of moonlight reflected upon his hair and the starlight dancing in his eyes as he makes promises he has no intention of keeping.

His skill with poisons are greater than he knows; he has poisoned her very competence as a leader with his Maker-cursed silken laughter. Even the constant fear that tugs at her instinct for survival has been quieting as he inches closer and closer every night. Soon, soon he will make an advance that she will not wish to turn down enough. And then she shall make the greatest mistake of her short life.

He cannot love her, she is too broken to be loved, and he has declared the emotion beyond him.

**The Interview by AFI (A Fire Inside)**

They wipe blood from their blades, the final remnants of an Antivan once claiming kinship of the soul to Zevran. He turns to her, smiles without mirth. The only joy that breaks across his face comes when she claims to want him by her side despite being one mortal enemy less and therefore no longer needing her resident assassin.

Her pride sinks to her boots. He has trusted her with everything, and she cannot yet stand to meet his eyes.

That night she meets him before the fire. Silences the inevitable comment laden with half-hearted sexual meanings with a trembling finger laid upon his lips, quirked in a sardonic smile. And then she explains.

That night, she lets him touch her. He is gentle, reverent, as his fingers and lips kiss her skin, delicate as summer frost.

It is easier than she thought it would be, to simply surrender to trust. They spend the night curled around one another, elven limbs entwined, the smell of their shared sweat pervading the tent. Death may come tomorrow, but they've had this night.

**Haunted by Evanescense **

_Regret is a curious thing _Tabris muses as she stares down at the noble chattering away on the steps below her. He has no idea that she is here, that she is watching him, that with a will and a flick of the wrist she can end the life that has plagued her since she turned fifteen and a human's lust had turned upon her.

She has always regretted surrendering to hunger and letting this man steal every ounce of her pride. Stealing every bit of her courage.

Even now her knees quake. Even now that she is so far above him. She still fears him, knows that if those silver eyes turn upon her again they will swiftly fill with the same possessive hunger that has watched her for so many years.

Warmth touches the crook of her elbow, and her assassin smiles a crooked smile as he sheaths a stiletto blade, missing a coat of subtle poison and now graced with the faintest trace of nobleman's blood.

**Broken Sunday by Saliva**

Her legs burn with overuse, and her arms protest at her insistence that they grip the blade clinched in her fist. _It is over_, she half-hopes, knowing she is desperate. Maybe Riordan was wrong.

The arch demon stirs, its rotting wings spreading a wave of forgotten scents that belong to blood and long times past.

She spares only a single glance for the clouded sky, a single prayer for the slim figure she has left at the gates, waiting for her glorious return. She couldn't bear to tell him last night as she laid tangled in his loving arms that it would never come.

A moan of pain from the struggling dragon kin forces her into movement. She drops the dagger as her hand tightens upon the hilt of a blade abandoned in the heat of battle. She wrenches it from the life it claimed as she runs forward. Through pure will she propels herself forward and up. The blade plunges down, and a column of purity rises to meet her as the beast soul erupts into her, obliterating her existence, leaving a single thought.

_I'm sorry._

**And that is my songfic thing. It was actually really fun; I may try it out for more DA pairings and possibly Mass Effect or some books… Review, if you would please!**


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